Item: Hungarian Goulash
Rating: 5
Author: Archivist John

Is it worth your six minutes?

If you like old-school animation history, you should probably watch this. It is weird and a bit dark, but it moves so fast you won't have time to get bored. If you hate 1930s tropes or scratchy audio, stay far away.

So I finally sat down with Hungarian Goulash today. It is a Paul Terry production, which usually means things are going to be a bit chaotic and not very polished.

The plot is as basic as it gets. Some cats kidnap a mouse because they want to cook her. That is it.

The first thing I noticed was how much everyone bounces. Seriously, every character is constantly moving up and down like they are standing on a trampoline. It is that early 1930s style where they didn't know how to let a frame just be still.

The cats have these noodle arms that don't seem to have any bones in them. It is actually kind of unsettling to watch them dance. One cat is playing a violin and he is just sawing away at it with this manic energy that feels slightly threatening.

I caught myself looking at the background art more than the characters. There are these little hanging pots and pans in the kitchen that look surprisingly detailed. It is funny how the artists spent so much time on a ladle but the cats' faces look like they were drawn in five seconds.

There is this one moment where the mouse looks directly at the screen. She has this very tired expression on her face. It is like she knows she is in a cartoon and she is already over it. 🐭

The music is just... a lot. It never stops. It is this high-pitched, scratchy violin loop that stays in your head way longer than it should. It reminds me of the frantic pacing in The Madcap Musician, where the rhythm is the most important part of the whole thing.

I did find the "gypsy" theme a bit awkward to watch now. It was such a common trope back then, but it makes the whole thing feel very dated. The cats are all wearing these little vests and earrings while they try to commit mouse-murder.

Hungarian Goulash scene — Scene from Hungarian Goulash

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Hungarian Goulash (1930) through its definitive frames.

Why is the mouse wearing a full dress and a little hat? It makes the fact that they are trying to eat her feel much weirder. Usually, in these cartoons, the animals are just animals, but giving her a wardrobe makes it feel like a crime drama.

The animation physics are totally broken, too. At one point, a cat stretches his neck about three feet long just to look into a pot. It’s not even a gag, it just happens. I love how fearless these early animators were with anatomy.

It definitely isn't trying to be high art like The Artist. It is just a quick gag reel meant to fill time before a feature film started. You can tell they were working on a tight deadline because some of the lines on the cats' faces literally disappear for a few frames.

The ending happens so fast I actually had to rewind it. I thought I missed a scene. One minute they are preparing the pot, and the next, the mouse is gone and the cartoon is over. There is no big heroic rescue or anything. It just... stops.

I noticed a smudge on the lens or maybe the original film strip during the kitchen scene. It looks like a tiny hair stuck in the corner. I love seeing those little imperfections because it reminds you a real person was handling this stuff nearly a hundred years ago.

Frank Moser’s hand is all over this. You can tell he liked drawing round, squishy shapes. Even the soup pot looks like it could be squeezed like a rubber ball.

If you compare this to something like Carmen, Jr., you can see how the studio was really trying to find its voice. They hadn't quite figured out how to make characters lovable yet. These cats are just scary.

I wouldn't say this is a masterpiece by any means. It is more of a curiosity. A weird, loud, slightly mean-spirited curiosity from a time when cartoons were still figuring out what they wanted to be.

Check it out if you want to see a cat play a violin while a mouse contemplates its own existence in a soup pot. 🎻